Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, once again shows that he is a master storyteller and one of the finest craftsmen writing fiction today. And The Mountains Echoed (Riverhead, $28.95), exploring how the interwoven lives of one Afghan family intersect and echo across generations and geographic boundaries, is probably his most ambitious novel to date. It is a beautiful, searing, and evocative tale that makes the reader think hard about the convergence of circumstance and choice, the pull of family and country, and the pressures on a people who struggle to remain whole amid foreign occupation, the rise of radical Islam, and the tensions of the post 9/11 world.
The Lowland (Knopf, $27.95) is a masterful tale rooted in the close relationship of two brothers who nonetheless take different paths. Udayan remains in Calcutta to support Naxalite reform, while Subhash seeks an education in marine chemistry in Rhode Island. The narrative builds slowly, gracefully making the reader aware of connections, shifting moods, intentions, and impressions—footprints in cement and on a beach, letters on a wall and on the pages of a journal, for instance. What endures? What fades? Jhumpa Lahiri’s light touch in character development has a gradual, but undeniable, cumulative power, and by the end of this multi-generational saga that extends over two continents, readers are fully invested in the many subtle changes that ultimately spark cataclysmic moments of crisis, irrevocably altering these characters’ lives.
South Africa these days may call itself the “Rainbow Nation,” but the society portrayed in The Lion Seeker (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28) is more like the smudged iridescence in a puddle of spilled engine oil. The characters in this ambitious historical saga by the Canadian-by-way-of-South-Africa debut novelist, Kenneth Bonert, inhabit a world of ruthlessly utilitarian choices; of simple practical necessities arising from, as well as perpetuating, the brutal prevailing social narrative of reflexive, unselfconscious racism, prejudice, and hate. Of course, there is also love and acceptance in this world, and the relationship between the red-haired, Lithuanian-born, Jewish “white” panel beater Isaac Helger and his fierce, scarred and secretive, but loving and indulgent mother, Gitelle, forms the center of the story. The action unfolds in the midst of South Africa’s mine-dust-covered slums and desolate veldt, her remote and struggling farms, and her palatial homes on manicured lawns, all narrated in a clear and straightforward, but tough and authentic vernacular.
